“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”

– Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

Elliot Rodger and you

I missed out on Columbine. When it happened I was five years old. I vaguely remember adults being upset about it, but it never really affected me. I was too young.

Since then there have been a mountain of school shootings. Some dude gets mad and goes berserk. Shoots up the whole campus, kills himself, they hold a memorial. It’s like clockwork. No one bats an eye. Back to Tom for the sports recap. Here’s a commercial for soap. Two Broke Girls will be on next.

The recent Elliot Rodger shooting was a little different. It felt more personal to me. The typical shooter doesn’t do stuff I do, he doesn’t live in my world. Anime and Doritos isn’t something I can relate too. This Elliot Rodger guy, he lived in my world. A bizarre mirror of my universe, but it was was close enough to make me think.

Why game is the second creepiest thing in the world

As long time readers will probably know, I’m an advocate of men learning how actually deal with women. Not in some stupid or sleazy manner that involves wearing a fuzzy hat or pretending your name is Brock Steel and you’re a professional lion tamer, but in a way that actually makes you grow as a man. A man who knows how to deal with women isn’t going to throw his friends under the bus to try and impress the waitress at his sports bar and he isn’t going to give up on his goals because “the boss” told him he wasn’t allowed to pursue them.

While a lot of game stuff like PUA is really cheesy and there are tons of game dudes who are bitter and should be avoided at all costs, see the Return of Kings comment section for some real life examples, a lot of the actual advice is worth reading and studying. You can learn way more about physiology, science, and goal setting from a thirty minute RSD video than you could from the majority of psychologists or college professors.

You can call the video above weird or make fun of the dudes in it, but they aren’t doing anything negative. Their whole message is basically just to do your best, have fun, and grow as a man. Feminazis or slipping a girl a roofie are nowhere in the video. The overall message is positive and it’s about putting in work to reap the rewards.

Despite this, stuff like pick up or game, somebody should come up with less dorky terms for this stuff, gets treated like its pure evil. If told a room full of people that you were learning how to get better with women they’d treat you like some kind of child molester. You’d be ostracized in record time.

The mainstream narrative for men is one that lauds being passive. If you are a man you are basically expected to sit around and just hope for good things to fall into your lap. Its like predestination. If you’re fat you got bad genetics. Going to the gym is for douchebags and homosexuals, you should just sit at home. You’re bad with women, sucks to be you. Some people are just born with charisma. A nice girl will fall in your lap eventually. Buying a book about becoming a better conversationalist is for creepy perverts who are probably rapists too.

Taking any kind of action with anything automatically makes you a creepy insecure douchebag. Successful people don’t exercise, talk to women, or have their own business. They wear Khaki pants from Sears and spend their free time watching ESPN.

This argument has always made me mad. It promotes being lazy and rewards people for failure. It also cuts you off from a lot of normal and regular people. Being around old friends or relatives has some weird cloud of tension surrounding it.

After thinking over the whole Elliot Rodger incident I realized something. Going to the gym, developing self-confidence, and working towards something is in fact the second creepiest and weirdest thing that a man can do. The only thing worse is not taking any type of positive action.

Going to the gym or recording thousands of hours of videos where you stew in your own self-loathing.

Going online and Googling “How to meet women” or making a graph that depicts you murdering people?

A copy of Models obviously would not have stopped Elliot Rodger, arguing that game would have saved lives is a stupid and oversimplified argument. However, it could have helped. Rodger is known to have sat around all day brooding in his own negativity and his rage was encouraged by other members of the ant-game forum that he was involved with. It would be safe to assume that his toxic environment helped, to an extent, in driving him to kill.

The classic mainstream narrative that you should be passive and wait for good things to happen is flawed and dangerous. Eventually people get tired of waiting. They grow frustrated. And without any kind of vision as to what they can do to solve their problem they lash out.

“Maybe, I’ll have to commit some new federal crime every couple of years in order to get my books done!”

– Gary Halbert

Last week the transmission went out on my car. I ended up getting stuck at my house for almost a full week. It was like being in jail. Until Saturday afternoon I didn’t leave my house. It sucked and made me incredibly depressed.

Not being able to go to the gym wrecked my mind worse than anything else I’ve ever experienced. I decided to take the entire year off of doing drugs and it’s been easier for me to handle. Not lifting made me feel fat and want to kill myself.

After sitting around and being depressed for a few days I decided to take action. I looked around and found a book about someone in a situation similar to mine.

The Boron Letters is an interesting collection of essays written by the infamous Gary C. Halbert. For the uninitiated, Halbert was basically the grandfather of selling shady products. He was an Internet marketing guru before the Internet.

Unsurprisingly these tactics landed Halbert is prison for fraud. While there he wrote the The Boron Letters. While Halbert’s normal writing was usually incredibly polished, these works are rough and raw. They reminded me of old Paladin Press books like the Poor Man’s Ray Gun. While it isn’t well written, and there are a lot of typos, the book is still interesting enough to be worth a read. This is one of those reads where a million dollars worth of information has been tucked away into a twenty-dollar paperback. Halbert’s notes from jail are a hundred times more interesting and informative than most of the business books that are currently on the market.

In fact, this book has already paid for itself. While reading it I got so motivated that I actually managed to close a deal earning me an extra $250 every single month. That’s an additional $3,000 this year.

What made The Boron Letters great was the fact that it doesn’t hold any punches. The whole book is filled with actual practical information. Halbert gives clear guidelines as to what you need to do in order to make money:

“When a person first looks at something you have written it should be something that looks inviting to read. Easy-to-read. When he looks at your page of copy he should be drawn to your copy like a convict is to a Penthouse Magazine.Your page of copy (be it letter or space ad) should be laid out in such a manner as to be an attractive “eye treat” for the reader.

This means wide margins, a certain amount of white space, double spacing between paragraphs, short words, short sentences, short paragraphs and an attractive, inviting layout.”

If you want a book that actually teaches you how to make money, check out The Boron Letters. It’s a meaty read that’s packed with all kinds of quality information.

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”

– Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

I hadn’t gone out since the middle of March. After developing a disgusting case of folliculitis I decided to stay in on the weekends and get more work done. My skin looked gross, so I figured that there was no point in going out anyway.

It looked worse in real life.

Instead of socializing, I sat inside and read books or watched movies on the weekend. This wouldn’t have been a big deal if I had a job where I have to talk to people, but I don’t. I was basically a shut in for more than a month.

Now that my skin is healing up, I’ve decided that it’s time for me to be social again. This was easier said than done. Because I was at home for so long, going out and doing stuff with other people actually made me kind of nervous. As dumb as it sounds, I was scared to go and talk to people at bars and clubs. Having not done it in a while I feared that I’d be awkward and weird. I was worried that people would judge me. The thought of being ridiculed was horrifying.

Rather than wallowing in my fear, I decided to take action. I analyzed my emotions and realized that it would be near impossible to convince my brain that nothing bad would happen. In my mind I made up all kinds of excuses about why I had to stay home. I hadn’t had a haircut in a while, I wanted to finish reading a book, I needed a good night’s rest. The rationalizations were endless.

Finally I had enough. I looked at a map, found a city I had never been to, and got in my car. I drove to the downtown area, locked my phone in the vehicle and went into the most crowded club on the block.

Within 15 minutes I was talking to people and having a good time. I made out with a couple girls, I danced to some dubstep song, and I met cool people. Before closing time some random girl I had briefly talked with came over and gave me her number in case I wanted to “hang out” after she drove her friends home. I took her up on the offer.

I could have let my fear consume me. I could have made up excuses about America being full of “feminazis,” or sat inside to make a meme about having social anxiety. Instead I manned up, walked out my door and confronted what was terrifying me. Complaining is for whiners and losers. Weak men sit at home and shriek about how evil and horrible the world is. They can’t bear to face their fears so they amplify them and let them control every aspect of their lives. Men who prattle on about how awful the world is are cowards. Thy know that they are weak, but don’t have the courage to admit it. Instead they have to fabricate grandiose tales to try and convince the rest of the world that their own pitiful existence is some kind of revolutionary and genius one man war against the system.

Whining and complaining is for losers. Anyone who dares to call himself a man must take on what he fears the most. There’s no honor in sitting at the sidelines and lying about why you can’t participate.

“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.”

– Albert Einstein

[Note: Today’s post is taken out of a short eBook that I am writing. I wanted to share this section ahead of time both because I thought it was useful and because I wanted some feedback on whether or not my theory made sense.]

What is a faux achievement?

A faux achievement is something that tricks your mind into thinking that you are actually accomplishing something. In reality you are still procrastinating, but you’ve managed to camouflage your diversions so that they look vaguely like work. If we look at a traditional to-do list, in the style that many people advocate, we can easily spot all of the faux achievements:

To Do:

1. Write to-do list

2. Take a shower

3. Get dressed

4. Make Coffee

5. Call mom

6. Check email

7. Visit the store and buy groceries

8. Edit two hour video for client

While a list like this is fine for someone who just needs to do errands or wants to get a few household chores done on a lazy Sunday, it’s terrible for an entrepreneur. I know, because I’ve been tricked by this kind of list on multiple occasions. For someone who is self-employed faux achievements are activities that don’t actually generate them money or help their business to grow. Making coffee and calling mom are noble endeavors, but they won’t help your company.

The worst part about faux achievements is the fact that they easily dupe you into thinking that you’ve been productive. Let’s take a look at that same to-do list once most of it has been finished. You’ll quickly notice how ineffective these goal sheet actually was:

To Do:

1. Write to-do list

2. Take a shower

3. Get dressed

4. Make Coffee

5. Call mom

6. Check email

7. Visit the store and buy groceries

8. Edit two hour video for client

Despite the fact that our entrepreneur knocked out almost the whole list, they only did one task that will actually benefit their career. Everything other than checking their email was just fluff. Although traditional wisdom would say that they completed all of their easy goals first and were able to build up momentum for the most grueling task, I’ve experienced the opposite. A day of grocery shopping, talking on the phone, and doing other menial tasks will drain your energy. By the time that you sit down to actually do your real job, you’ll be worn out and exhausted.

My strategy is a lot different. It forces me to tackle the hardest task first. This way I get my work out of the way early, and have more time to enjoy myself and do other projects. Right now as I type these words it is 2 pm, I’ve made all my money for today and am going to spend some time working on this book before I go outside for a walk. While everyone else is stuck inside wasting their time and dragging out assignments, I’ll be freer than Boosie.

“The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”

– Thomas Sowell

Weekend warriors are killing writing. There’s a slew of forums and message boards where guys sit around and circle jerk about how they are on the way to “location independence” by making $300 a month off freelance article writing. They brag about doing work for thirty cents an hour, or some other silly nonsense. While there’s nothing wrong with making money as a part time hobby, I do have a problem with people who show up on sites like oDesk and drive the expectations through the floor. While I already make perfectly good money as a freelance writer, I try and take on a few new clients every week.

Recently I’ve started to notice a surge in companies who are looking for people to write for infinitesimal amounts. Although this is normal with stuff like content writing, it’s starting to appear in more lucrative fields as well. I like writing eBooks, and I’ve started to notice that many of the jobs are paying a penny a word. It’s the same rate that pulp writers used to get back in the 1940’s. And that was the hack writer rate, guys like Lovecraft and Gibson made far more.

Rather than complaining, I’ve decided to make a brief guide to earning more than what most people will settle for.

How to avoid being lumped in with weekend warriors

Don’t settle.

Earlier today I was hired to proofread a 5,000 word article. The client then revealed that they wanted everything done in 24 hours. We had initially agreed on 48. I told them that I’d have the article to them in 12 hours, they just had to pay double.

Once I got the article, I found out that my client had outsourced it to some barely literate third world writer. I would basically have to rewrite the entire thing. While this normally wouldn’t be a problem, the article in question required a lot of research. It related to a medical product and relied on actual facts and statistics. This simple project was going to take several hours. I messaged my client and had them increase my payment again.

While it might sound like I was a greedy jerk, the project ended up taking all day. Had I meekly submitted and been content with getting a client, I would have lost money. By standing my ground I was able to earn what I normally make in a day, and deliver a quality product.

Have some forethought.

People mistake online hustling with sorcery. Forums are filled with men who gleefully boost about making ten bucks an hour by writing penny a word articles. They proclaim that they are actually saving money, because their job doesn’t require them to drive to an office or wear a suit. While working for yourself does have benefits, there are also some drawbacks. You have to have your own insurance, no one pays you when you’re sick, and you have to dig up clients on your own. Ten dollars an hour becomes nothing once you factor in personal expenses. Electricity, taxes, insurance, getting sick, and a slew of other factors can place your earnings at less than minimum wage.

I like to use magazine writers as a metric for pricing my services. Even small publications with limited circulation pay more than a penny a word. They’d have no content otherwise. A company selling a twenty dollar eBook to a massive audience can spare more than a penny per word. At ten cents a word for a 10,000 word book they’d have to sell fifty copies before recuperating their losses. That’s not terribly hard to do.

If you want to freelance, don’t expect that doing menial and worthless jobs is going to actually do much for you. I spent an entire month writing garbage content for a couple bucks a day. And I’d still be doing it if I hadn’t quit. People undervalue writing. They don’t do it out of greed, they do it because no one ever presents them with an actual bid. If you’re willing to stand up for yourself and have quality material, don’t be afraid to ask for more. There’s absolutely no reason that you should be thankful to make someone else rich without taking any of the credit or money.